NOVEMBER 2009 The MoonWalk
Editorial
L ooking for life on other “Earths” is certainly one of the most
fascinating explorations we humans have ever thought of. It
becomes even more interesting when it comes to the question
of other intelligent lives in the universe. If we could find an intelligent
alien civilization, it would dramatically affect every aspect of our life.
On the other hand, not finding such a civilization would force us to
examine the purpose of our own existence.
But our spacecrafts and earthbound search instruments have so far
drastically failed to detect even a single sign of life elsewhere in the
universe. Of course many rumors about UFO sighting and humans
being abducted by aliens make compelling science fiction but none of
these reports has ever been verified.
This lack of solid data leads us to think why at all we continue to look
for life beyond Earth? What makes us think that Alien life forms exists
in other parts of the Universe?
The answer to this question comes from one of the great lessons of
modern astronomy, namely, that our circumstances are quite ordinary.
Contrary to the beliefs of our ancestors, our Earth does not occupy a
special location and is by no means the “Centre of the Universe.” We
now know that we inhabit one of eight planets orbiting an
unremarkable star, a star that is just one of billions in an
undistinguished galaxy. Nothing in our surrounding is so unique as to
make us special. This fact leads us to believe that life as different that
might be from us should exist on other parts of the Universe too. This
leads the scientists involved in the Search for Extraterrestrial
Intelligence popularly known as SETI to work continuously from its
beginning in 1960.
It all started with the claim of two famous Cornell University scientists
Guiseppi Cocconi and Phil Morrison that it would be possible to
communicate with other potential extraterrestrial life in space by the
use of techniques used in radio astronomy. Radio waves can travel
immense distances without being significantly degraded by the gas
and dust through which they pass. Hence, if other “alien
astronomers” possessed radio telescope, then it would be possible to
communicate with them. This led to a young astronomer Francis
Drake to propose building a radio receiver in order to listen for waves
being transmitted through space. Thus, in the spring of 1960, Drake
started the first SETI project: Ozma. With his 85 feet antenna, he
continuously searched for two months. Unfortunately the only sound
he got was static.
Although Ozma proved to be nothing but disappointment, but it
encourage others to actively participate in the search. As a result,
within a decade, SETI became an extensive field of research and
proved to be the prime encouragement for many technical innovations.
Consequently in 1995, a non profit organisation named the SETI
institute came into existence with the mission to "explore, understand
and explain the origin, nature and prevalence of life in the universe".
Since then, the SETI institute has worked on many breathtaking
projects and still continuing to explore the cosmos.
Although the question "whether we are alone or we have company
among us in the universe?" is still remain unanswered, but with our
scientific research and study, we expect to find the answer. It is the fear
of the unknown that drives many of the researches onward into the
discovery of extraterrestrial intelligence, and hopefully one day, all
this hard work will pay off!
Unfortunately, in 1994 due to political issues NASA stopped funding of SETI program stating it as a foolish unnecessary scientific endeavor
that wasted valuable funding. Despite the trouble, SETI program was reborn with the formation of the privately funded SETI institute in
02
It is the most distant object ever discovered… it is the
remnant of the star that died when universe was still
nascent i.e. less than 5% of its present age… it's the
brightest and most violent explosion that ever
happened… and its to fill the 'last blank spaces on the
map of universe'.
Dubbed GRB 090423, the explosion is thought to
accompany the catastrophic death of a very massive
star as it ended its life, and is triggered by the centre of
the star collapsing to form a black hole. The gamma-
ray burst itself occurred about 630 million years after
the Big Bang but it is so far away (about 13.1 billion
light years) that the light from the explosion only
arrived at the Earth in April of this year. It was noticed
first by the NASA satellite Swift and later thousands of
telescopes turned their heads to catch the after-
glimpses of this massive explosion.
Another milestone for the year's fame.
And as the year of Astronomical celebrations would
end in another month the world would have already
moved a lot ahead from the day, 400 years back in time,
when Galileo Galilei first discovered the cosmos
through a telescope.
With the immense astronomical activities down here at
earth, the sky too has remained restless. Seems like an
indication of how we may save our earth by knowing
the one that created it. The world often seems doomed,
full of mistakes that we ourselves created, the regret we
will have to face in a near future, and the ignorance
that is so surmounting. But the best solution that
nature presents us with to heal is knowing the stars
above. Modernity needs to learn a lot more lessons
from the bases of science which rest in the
constellations.
The International Year of Astronomy ends here but the
effort shall remain. All around the world and here at
our alma mater. Next year moonwalk would return
with yet another compilation of answers for our most
intriguing questions about the world beneath and
world above.
Till then Happy Stargazing..!
SETI@home
Wish to contribute in finding an Alien?
SETI@home is a volunteer distributed computing project that allows
everyone to contribute into the SETI. Instead of using a large
computer for processing the data, it sends small chunks of data to
millions of voluntary computers around the world. Each of these PCs
processes the data independently during its idle time and after
finishing the task, it sends the processed data back to SETI@home and
gets a new one. By using the idle time computing of millions of
computers, SETI@home has been able to conduct the most sensitive
SETI search in the history. With more than 290 thousands computers
in the network, it has become the largest and one of the most powerful
Supercomputers in the world.